The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers, Digital Edition > My Day
MAY 20, 1953
EN ROUTE TO TOKYO, Tuesday—Monday in New York was one of those days which always come just before I leave on a trip. My most interesting hours were spent with Dean Carman at a small luncheon at the Men's Faculty Club at Columbia University. This was attended by members of the American-Japanese Committee for Intellectual Interchange and by Mr. Yoshiro Nagayo, the other guest, who has been travelling around the United States for the committee.
The effort of the committee here has been to introduce the Japanese visitors to parts of the United States which visitors frequently do not see. Visitors under the sponsorship of the committee have gone to Atlanta, Ga., to Nashville, Tenn., up to Minnesota and into New England. So they will not just know San Francisco, New York, Chicago and Washington, D.C.
They are learning some interesting things. One of the visitors for instance, said he had always thought the American Negro had a language and cultural pattern all his own and that our segregation was directed at him because we considered his cultural pattern and language inferior.
The realization that the Negroes talked English, were American citizens, and part of the whole American system in spite of some of the drawbacks under which they labor within it, was a complete and absolute surprise. This shows, I think, how good it is to bring people here so that they can correct for themselves misapprehensions which have grown up through lack of information.
I was given much helpful advice and many people present who had been in Japan told me some of the problems and prepared me for some of the questions I would be apt to find among different groups.
I was very grateful for this opportunity and enjoyed it very much.
I also had a talk on Monday with Mr. Joseph Johnson of the Carnegie Endowment and Mr. Paul Hoffman of the Studebaker Corp.
We talked about the world and its aspects. Mr. Hoffman has just spent a few hours in Japan and some days in Pakistan and India. His observations as a business man and private individual were of interest to me and I wish I had as much information about Japan as he has about conditions there.
There are so many people I want to talk to who can tell me so many things I want to know which would be helpful that these last two days are crowded to the limit.
Miss Anna Lord Strauss came to see me the other afternoon. She is going for the State Department to many of the countries which I am to visit, only her trip is to include more Far Eastern countries and she will stay longer. She is sponsored by the government and I am going as a private individual. I hope the women of all these Far Eastern countries will have an opportunity to talk with Miss Strauss and gain a knowledge of organization since I know she would be of great help to them.
E.R.
(WORLD COPYRIGHT, 1953, BY UNITED FEATURE SYNDICATE, INC. REPRODUCTION IN WHOLE OR IN PART PROHIBITED.)
Names and Terms Mentioned or Referenced
Persons
- Carman, Harry J. (Harry James), 1884-1964 [ index ]
American historian and educator; Dean at Columbia University
[ LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST ] - Hoffman, Paul G. (Paul Gray), 1891-1974 [ index ]
American businessman and government official; company executive at Studebaker
[ LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST | US Nat. Archives | ANB ] - Johnson, Joseph E. (Joseph Esrey), 1906-1990 [ index ]
American government official and policy institure executive
[ LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST | US Nat. Archives ] - Nagayo, Yoshirō, 1888-1961 [ index ]
Japanese novelist and playwright
[ LC | ISNI | VIAF | Wikidata | FAST ] - Strauss, Anna Lord, 1899-1979 [ index ]
American civic leader
[ LC | VIAF | Wikidata | SNAC | FAST | US Nat. Archives | ANB ]
Geographic
- [ index ] Tokyo (Japan)
About this document
My Day by Eleanor Roosevelt, May 20, 1953
Digital edition created by The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project The George Washington University 312 Academic Building 2100 Foxhall Road, NW Washington, DC 20007
Digital edition published 2008, 2017 by
The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers Project
Available under licence from the Estate of Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.
Published with permission from the Estate of Anna Eleanor Roosevelt.
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